Rallye Maroc Historique 2014

Well here's a great vintage rally event over in Morocco.  Running for a number of years this event draws big numbers of competitors.  This year saw some 90 entrants running a cool mix of vehicles from vintage Porsche 911s to Ford Escort RS Mk2s to a Nissan 240.

The event lasted for almost a full week covering 25 special stages and some 450 racing kilometers.  In the end it was Jean-Francois Berenguer taking the win in his Escort RS Mk2 and a the aforementioned Nissan 240 RS (the only Nissan/Datsun in the event) taking third and driven by Gregoire de Mevius.

The event web page can be found in French and English here:  http://www.rallyedumaroc-historique.com/

Great Vintage Vehicle Rally In Australia...

Vintage offroad racing has been on the upswing here in North America with the popularity of the NORRA series of events in Baja Mexico but its popularity hasn't moved over into the world of stage rally.  While there are a handful of vintage racers still out there--Greg Healey's '78 280Z, the Huebbe's VW Bug and Jason Lightner's '76 Porsche to name a few, gathering enough of them in one particular place at one particular time to make a legit event would be unheard of.

A bit of that has to do just with the popularity of the sport here in the States...there just aren't enough fans to have built enough vehicles over the years to create a stable of raceable vintage vehicles.

Australia is different however.

Prime example?  The Alpine Rally 2013 that just took place.  The event saw 99 "classic" vehicle entries (when was the last time a stage rally drew 99 entries here in the States let alone 99 vintage vehicles?) to cover up to 256 competitive kilometers for a cost of $795.  For an additional point of interest the organizers estimated that to handle the road closures over this event they would need 150 road closure officials and an additional 50 control officials.  Compare that to the cost and number of workers we in the US would use for our events.

The collection of vehicles at this event was especially cool.  Far from a collection blue Subarus and red and white Evos we have tons of RWD action of all sorts and a couple drivers we even know over here in North America (Will Orders and Alister McRae).  Enjoy some of the better photos courtesy of Peter and Luke Whitten.

Oh and the results??  Jeffrey David took the win in a Porsche 911, Alister McRae finished 2nd in a Group 4 Ford Escort and third was Wayne Hoye in a Datsun 260Z.

Alpine Rally Website...

 

Caselli, a Porsche and a Cummins All Meet In the Desert...

 
With exactly 75 days to go before the start of the '14 Dakar rally major teams are getting in their last competitive events and testing before packing up their vehicles for the trip to South America.  The 2013 Rally du Maroc (Rally Morocco) saw at least three of these top teams show up for a run through the dunes, sand and rock that should reflect similar conditions to the more "desert" oriented stages of the Dakar.

KTM was present with their top riders--Marc Coma, Chaleco Lopez and American Kurt Caselli.  Caselli would suffer an early 20 minute penalty for missing a waypoint but would battle back to finish in 7th overall.  Without the penalty, Caselli would have finished 6th overall, some 44 minutes back.  The top 6 spots alternated Honda-KTM with Honda coming out on top and looking strong for Dakar.  Additional note here is that while there was only one American in the field, there was also an Australian, two Venezuelans, one Mexican (Carlos Gracida-Garza who finished 20th on a Honda), two Chileans, one South African, one Bolivian and one Brit.  Good to see a wide spread of entrants from across the globe.

Also showing up was a very cool Porsche from the Italian driver/codriving pair of Agostino Rizzardi and Loris Calubini.  They appear to have only made it through Stage 3 of 6.  Agostino has piloted a number of Porsches in various stage rally events around Europe and was using an 4WD Porsche 911 for Rally Morocco.  Great to see one of these back out in the African sand again.

Lastly we have the SMG buggie (a French builder headed by Philippe Gache) that is backed by Cummins of France which finished 2nd overall.  Piloted by Patrick Sireyjol with Francois Beguin as codriver, the Cummins France team finished nine minutes off the top step though this is a tad misleading as the event winner incurred 38 minutes of penalties.  Dropping all penalties the Cummins team would have finished some 44 minutes adrift and still in second place overall.  The Cummins vehicle prevented a clean sweep of the podium by the Rally-Raid dominant X-Raid Minis who finished first, third and fourth lead by top flight Dakar entrant Orlando Terranova.


Oh!!  and the top Nissan in the event?  It was the #342 of Michele Cinotto and Fulvio Zini who finished in 20th of 56 finishers with Nissan putting six finishing vehicles in the event behind only Toyota who saw 17 finishers carry their brand.
Rally Morocco Homepage..

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40 Year Old Datsun 240Z Takes 2WD Win at Prescott Rally 2013

40 year old rally cars are rare.  40 year old rally cars that can still win are even more rare.

That didn't prevent Brian Scott and his codriver Michel Hoche-Mong from bringing out a 240Z with Pikes Peak experience in addition to Stage Rally history and taking home the 2WD win at the 26th running of the Prescott Rally in Arizona.

Finishing in 3rd overall out of 20 entries the red and black Z showed that RWD can still be competitive with modern vehicles when piloted well--particularly in the dry terrain of the West.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the Porsche 911 handled by Jason Lightner and Brian Johnson who finished 12th overall after numerous issues and grabbed 2nd place in NASA's 2WD National Championship.

Prescott Rally Homepage...

Australian Rally Championship: Scouts Rally SA 2013

Another Australian Rally event and another event showing the fragile nature of using 20+ year old Nissans as your racing vehicle of choice.

Unfortunately Will Orders and Jack Monkhouse, both in Nissan Silvias, DNFd (though Orders finished a solid 4th on the first day of competition.  Not that having a newer Nissan saved the day as the 370Z of Nicholas Box also DNF'd on the first day.

Maybe the key here is to use a REALLY old Nissan/Datsun as in the Classic class there were four old Datsuns that finished both days.

Beyond the Nissan and Datsuns of interest my eyes focused on the Porsche Cayenne (rare to see an SUV rallying, let alone such a high end one) and the very old Mercedes 280.  Both finished both days of the race.